Did people really love Princess Diana that much?

[canjest]

I just wondered as I knew she was well liked but videos like this show brown men crying!

www.instagram.com/reel/CnOCMtSKK_b/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

It was a very weird week between that Sunday morning when the news filtered out and the funeral on the Saturday. I remember half way through the week having a shower before going out to work a night shift, listening to a very calm discussion on The World Tonight on Radio 4. The contributors quite clearly thought it was a pivotal moment for the monarchy and that it might not survive. We know now that the Queen made a number of pragmatic moves (ie returning from Balmoral, doing a walkabout among the flowers) that helped safeguard the institution but it really could have gone either way.

I haven't read the thread. But her death was shocking at the time. And the reaction of the British general public, and the world, reflected that. I will always remember where I was and what I was doing that day. I will dispute the sarcastic "hysteria" comments from those who were neither born or were under adult age on that day. You dont have a fucking clue. The UK was shocked. You may not like that idea - but it was the truth - the silence was extraordinary. It is one of my 2 JFK moments. I will always know where I was and what I was doing at that time.

Yes, she was a wounded little bird and she had the best style at the time

Maybe so, however the whole point of Diana 'loudly' visiting that hospital was not only to show kindness and compassion to those she met who were dying of AIDS but also to show the public that there was nothing to fear; you couldn't catch it holding someone's hand, or giving them a hug. She really challenged the stigma around HIV and AIDS at the time just by being photographed holding a dying man's hand.

Love her or loathe her...whatever, but
why minimise the good she did? Her visit and the publicity surrounding it had a huge impact. Princess Margaret's 'quiet' visit? Not so much!

I was really shocked and did cry.

Yes they did. But since the British media turned on Prince Harry, bullying him relentlessly, the public became easily swayed🙄 So, they took Charles and Williams side, because they want the big fancy coronation and they have to be seen loving their king etc etc
So to take Charles side means to accept Camilla, his choice of Queen, his mistress, the destroyer of Charles and Diana's marriage(although he would have done a grand job of it himself in his own)
And by accepting Charles and his way of life, you cannot be loyal to Diana, so the public began to change the food memories of her, it's so sad. She came accross as an amazing mother and a beautiful genuine woman, to see how the British media and British public are trying to change history and place her as the bad one in the royal family is truly shameful and the British should be ashamed of themselves for having no loyalty and zero backbone for sticking up Diana and all she stood for, and for turning their backs on her youngest son and for accepting their national media for the way they treat people, it's disgusting!

Same age, this is what I think too.

Princess Diana’s death resulted in a huge outpouring of emotion because a lot of women and working class people identified with her. Princess Diana was used by the RF and she paid a heavy price. She was very young when she married and had two children shortly after. Prince Charles used her for his own benefit. Really quite horrid.

At the time I think a lot of women 40+ were in the same position as Princess Diana in terms of being used by their husband. When she died it was grief at their own relationship and Diana was the person they most related to.

What Princess Diana did for AIDS and homosexuality with one picture was groundbreaking. That was her power and the power of the royal family.

I was an adult then, and yes people were very shocked and saddened at the time. My mother cried all day. Diana was a huge celebrity, incredibly beautiful, and although she had issues, she was universally loved. Then she was killed in her 30s. Of course grown men cried. Watch her funeral on YouTube, you'll get an idea of how people felt.

Diana Spencer was a rather dim, highly privileged, privately educated, boarder line physiatric, embittered, manipulative, international clothes horse that seemed unable to use the common sense she was born with.

Quite what she thought she was doing mucking about with a wastrel playboy and playing games with the paps is anybodys business.

That she seems to have been canonised is equally mystifying because the jury was very much out on her at the time of her death.

@junglemaze

She came accross as an amazing mother and a beautiful genuine woman, to see how the British media and British public are trying to change history and place her as the bad one in the royal family is truly shameful and the British should be ashamed of themselves for having no loyalty and zero backbone for sticking up Diana and all she stood for, and for turning their backs on her youngest son and for accepting their national media for the way they treat people, it's disgusting!

I haven't changed my opinion of her.
I just have a different one to you

I didn't care about her before she died and I didn't care about her after she died.
However I do think she wanted media attention on her terms. If you want privacy travel by car not helicopter, as she did shortly before she died.

At the time of her death the tabloids were having a field day making a villain of her because of her relationship with Dodi and I suspect a lot of racist Britons really didn't approve.

I was terribly sad the day she died. All I could think about was her 2 little boys. I was glued to the TV all day. The very next day, a perfect early Autumn Monday, I started a brand new job in Kensington. It was surreal to say the least.

I didn't cry or queue to sign the books or go into town on the day of the funeral (some friends of mine cycled in) but I did feel extremely moved when I saw the white flowers and that card addressed to Mummy on the top of the coffin.

Psychiatric, sorry typo

Yes, when she was alive there were quite a few fans but lots and lots of people who felt she was attention-seeking, vain, dim and silly. And then she died and about 90% of the country freaked out and joined in the crazy for a few weeks. It was mad and I'm so glad I was there to see it but no, she wasn't everyone's universal saint. Worked for a tabloid at the time so I can remember well the change in tune from the reader response before and after her death.

I remember hearing about the car crash, and there was some uncertainty at first, and then that she had actually died was so completely shocking.
it was hard to believe things like that could happen to people like her.

we didn’t have celebrities in the same way they are now- just people with their own social media etc- she was someone with a larger-than-life story.

it’s so hard to explain, but basically she represented a lot of concepts and dreams, she was not just an ordinary human to so many people.

and at the same time, she had been so shabbily treated- many of us felt so angry at the Camilla exposé - Diana was an example of grace in the most horrible of circumstances.

and yes, she was on a pedestal.

I was quite young at the time, and did not cry, but I just remember being in absolute shock and disbelief that she could possibly be gone.

We used to get a few letters at the newspaper saying stuff like this. More often than you'd think they had newspaper photos of CPB smeared with shit included in the envelope - yes, actual shit. Honestly, the majority of people were on a much more even keel and saw people for the complicated beings that they are.

It was a massive event when they married. She was attacked in the press during their break up and then made a saint when she died. I clearly remember the mass hysteria when she died but equally I remember a lot of hysteria when take that split.

I think there was quite a lot of love and sympathy for her and respect for how she tackled her role and parenthood. She very much went against the grain. Obviously not everyone felt this. And she could behave a bit flaky. She also became quite beautiful as she grew in confidence. Some parts of the press could be pretty nasty - I remember a tabloid front page where they had photographed her coming out of the gym and blown up a photo to show cellulite on her leg.

When she died it was a shock but the country went nuts (England did anyway) - think of the Queen's passing on steroids. Huge piles of flowers outside Buckingham Palace and areas to leave flowers in other towns and cities. Lots of crying shown on the news. The reaction was a shock to the system too. And there was a lot of anger towards the RF especially the Queen about her/their reaction. It was quite bewildering to be on the outside of all that.

It was a very big deal at the time.

I was 29 when she died and I remember it all very well. There was this sense of the end of an era, young death, children left behind, the inaction of the Queen. And then two years later John Kennedy Jr also tragically died. There was already the anxiety and buildup to 2000, and then 9/11 in 2001.

Love her or loathe her...whatever, but
why minimise the good she did? Her visit and the publicity surrounding it had a huge impact. Princess Margaret's 'quiet' visit? Not so much!

Because it was self serving.
Princess Margaret was a regular visitor - her support hada huge impact on the people she visited.

It’s interesting to read the mix reviews. The ones saying balanced or negative views just say their opinion. The gushing fans can’t stand anyone that doesn’t have their opinion and we must be told we’re wrong and how she was a saint and we must be loyal to her.

As I recall there was collective shock afterall she was young and beautiful. Some people did like her some didn’t
I think the media coverage of the funeral didn’t help - close up filming of two heartbroken children and focusing in on flowers that said ‘mummy’ ( no wonder Harry hates the media)

but the media just went crazy and people just went along with it - it was mass hysteria
I think it was big news for a year at least

I think there was a lot of adoration of her, especially while she was still in the perceived fairytale stage of her marriage (which was obviously nothing like a fairytale in reality). The press did its usual stunt of building her into an icon, then tearing her down. Some people can be gullible, their emotions driven by what they read in the tabloids. Of course, when she died, everyone forgot about why her popularity had waned. I have never been a fan of the royals, but I remember feeling utterly shocked. Princess Diana was in the news every single day and it was strange that she was suddenly gone. We all talked about it at work, expressed the tragedy of it, discussed what might have happened. I'm in NI and even many nationalists here were moved by it. But those people crying and wailing on the news - I couldn't relate to that at all. I saw nothing like that. I think some people just get a bit carried away.

Same, I thought she was attention seeking and picked and chose when she wanted press attention - nobody I knew participated in any crying or laying flowers & I lived near her family home at the time.

Since her death she’s been made into some kind of martyr but at the time there was a lot of stuff in the press about all her affairs/relationships & I wasn’t a fan - she was no saint & the saddest thing is if she’d been wearing a seatbelt she probably would’ve survived.

I was in my mid 20s when she died. I wasn't in the UK at the time and my parents told me how bonkers it all was - including wall-to-wall news and TV schedules cleared. My abiding memory is that I was shocked she could die in a car crash. I had expected her to be more protected. Aside from that, I wasn't a particular fan of hers although as a kid I had books about her and bought the whole fairytale princess thing.

I think it was awful to make her children walk behind her coffin in public and the hysteria from some people was just weird - the vast majority didn't know her at all. All very strange.

We had to suffer Elton John at number 1 for weeks on end too.